Get your music on Spotify

All of the music on Spotify is delivered by labels and distributors. Music cannot be directly uploaded to Spotify. This is to ensure that all of the music on Spotify is fully licensed and prevents illegal or unlicensed music from being uploaded by 3rd parties.

But have no fear, getting your music on Spotify is easy. We have deals in place with most labels around the world and a wide range of digital distributors and aggregators. So, whether you have a label deal or not, you can get your music up on Spotify and get paid for every one of your streams.

If you already have a deal with a label or distributor:

Spotify likely already has a deal with your label or distributor. All you need to do to get your music on Spotify is ask them to make your music available on Spotify. If you have only recently signed to them then it may take a few weeks for your music to be delivered to Spotify.

If you do not have a deal with a label or distributor:

Don’t worry, you can still get your music on Spotify. We have deals in place with many companies who can deliver your music to us.

These services will handle the licensing and distribution of your music and will also administer the royalty payments that accrue from your streams on Spotify. There is usually a small fee or percentage cut involved in using these services.

You can find a list of aggregators that have an established relationship with Spotify here.

Update your content

My music is already on Spotify, but some of the attributes of my content are incorrect.

We get all the metadata on your artist discography directly from labels and distributors, and cannot update it manually.

If any of the following are incorrect, we are unable to manually update them and you’ll need to contact your distributor directly :

Artist Name

Featured Artist Names

Track Title

Album Title

Album Art

My music is on Spotify and I did not give permission to host my music, how did it get on here?

If your music is on Spotify, even though you haven’t sent it to us, it’s likely that your label or distributor has done so. Please contact them directly to rectify this issue.

My content is on the wrong discography page, how can I separate?

Please send us a request to have the content moved to a new, separate discography page. Include a link to your content by doing the following:

Go to the discography page where the content is located

Right-click on the album(s) or singles(s)

Click ‘Copy HTTP Link’

Paste and send

How do I have my music removed from Spotify?

Please contact your distributor directly and have them submit a takedown request.

List of Aggregators

These are some of the aggregators we work with that provide music for Spotify. These services will handle the licensing and distribution of your music and will also administer the royalty payments that accrue from your streams on Spotify. There is usually a small fee or percentage cut involved in using these services.

3. Wait for Verification

4. Make sure your image is up to date

We get all of our images directly through Rovi. If you do not not have a Rovi ID, please fill out this form or reach out to content.music@rovicorp.com to create a new one.

Once you have a Rovi ID, submit a new image at bit.ly/amgphotoupdate and include a 2048×2048 pixel JPEG and a link to your Spotify artist page and your Rovi ID in the description.

Once your information is updated there your Spotify profile will be updated automatically! For questions regarding these images or bio you can contact them at content.music@rovicorp.com.

Notifications & Emails

When users follow you, they instantly become a captive audience for everything you do on Spotify.

Every time you create a playlist, share a track or do anything else on your Spotify profile, your followers get an email telling them about it:

They also get a notification within the Spotify client:

And, your followers get notified whenever new music appears on your discography:

It’s a simple equation. More followers = more streams for your music.

Social Feeds

The Spotify Buddy Feed: Show Your Follower’s What You’re Listening To

The content you listen to will appear in your followers’ Spotify Buddy Feed — the scrolling list of activity found on the right-hand side of the Spotify desktop app.

The Spotify Activity Feed: Share Tracks With Your Followers

The song’s you share with your followers will appear in their activity feed. Shares stand out, and people notice when you have an active profile. The more they interact with your profile, the more your music gets streamed!

Ideas for great playlists

Axwell’s Party Playlist is an ongoing mix of tracks he loves, his own music from Swedish House Mafia and music from artists on his label, Axtone. Every time Axwell adds a track to the playlist, his subscribers are notified. That’s a potential 375k instant fans for his new music.

These are just a few of the hundreds of ways you can promote your career and interact with your fans using Spotify playlists. Have an idea you want to tell us about? We’d love to hear about it, so let us know!

Sharing

Once your profile is verified and you’ve got a playlist or two ready to go, it’s time to share your Spotify activity with your followers.

To set up your profile for sharing:

1. Go to the menu bar, click on Spotify, then Preferences.

2. Uncheck the option to make new playlists public.

This enables you to shape a new playlist before making it visible to fans.

3. Link to Facebook: You’ll also have the ability to choose to connect your Spotify profile to your Facebook account. This will share your listening history to Facebook automatically.

Please note: We are unable to connect Verified Spotify profiles to Facebook Pages at this time.

To Share to Facebook:

As we are currently unable to directly connect Facebook pages to Verified Spotify profiles, the best way to share to Facebook fan pages is to copy and paste a Spotify link directly onto the Facebook fan page.

Right click on the song, playlist or album, then click ‘Copy HTTP link’.

Paste the HTTP link into the ‘Status’ field on your Facebook page. The song, playlist or album info will display automatically.

Delete the link from the ‘Status’ field and add a personal message.

Click ‘Post’.

To share within Spotify:

Right click on the song, playlist or album, then click ‘Share’.

Add a comment that people will see once the playlist or track is posted to your feed.

Unselect Facebook, Twitter & Tumblr.

Click ‘Share’.

To Share to Twitter:

Right click on the song, playlist or album, then click ‘Share’.

Add a comment that people will see once the playlist or track is posted to your feed.

Ensure that only Twitter is selected.

Click ‘Share’.

To Share to Tumblr:

Right click on the song, playlist or album, then click ‘Share’.

Add a comment that people will see once the playlist or track is posted to your feed.

Ensure that only Tumblr is selected.

Click ‘Share’.

The Spotify Play Button

Spotify’s embeddable Play Button is a short piece of code that can be placed on any web-page, allowing you to create a music player quickly and easily.

Users can then listen to your Spotify playlists, tracks and discography without ever having to leave your site.

1. To get the code: just right-click on the playlist, track or album you want to share. Choose ‘Copy Embed Code’ and the code will be copied to your clipboard.

2. Paste the code into your website build, and a Spotify Play Button will appear on your site!

The Spotify Follow Button

Add a Spotify Follow to your webpage to make it even easier for your fans to follow you:

Users can click on the green Follow button and follow both your discography and Spotify profile instantly. They’ll then receive e-mail, mobile and in-Spotify notifications any time you release new music or share activity in Spotify. More followers = more streams of your music!

To generate a code for a Follow Button and to see more detailed information, just click here.

How To Get Your Merch on Spotify

Promote offers where your fans are

Using BandPage, you can promote your merchandise offers on your Spotify artist page. Fans will be able to directly click through to your product page to purchase. There are no fees or commissions for selling merch on Spotify.

For full details on how to start selling your merchandise and offers on Spotify please visit spotify.bandpage.com.

Integrate Songkick Tour Dates

Through Spotify’s Songkick integration, artists can get their tour dates to appear on their profile. Check out Songkick’s website for more information on how to sign up!

Data & Next Big Sound

As part of Spotify’s ongoing effort to help artists promote their careers, we’re teaming up with our friends Next Big Sound to release a revelatory Artist Analytics dashboard.

Both of our companies firmly believe that the more access artists and managers have to data, the more power they will have over their careers. This partnership embodies that belief. In fact, because we are so committed to empowering artists with data, we are offering this huge amount of data to artists for no charge.

If you don’t already have a Next Big Sound account you will be asked to create one in a few easy steps. If you already have a Next Big Sound account you can login with your existing information.

Search for your artist(s)

Search for the artist(s) that you would like to see analytics for and click the “+” to add them to your request list. You may request multiple artists at once, but only artists and their official managers will be approved to access their Spotify data through Next Big Sound.

During the approval process we may require proof of your relationship to the artist(s) you have requested data for. Since we respect every artist’s privacy, we kindly request that you apply for access to data related to your own music or that of artists you manage directly.

When done, hit the “Request Access” button to submit.

Once submitted you should receive an email confirmation of your application. At this point you can login to Next Big Sound and view other available metrics, but you will not be able to see Spotify data yet.

Await Approval

We are expecting a large volume of requests so please bear with us as we work to approve your request. This may take a few weeks but once we have approved your request you will receive a notification email. You can then login to Next Big Sound and see your Spotify data!

Once authorized, all Spotify data in Next Big Sound will be free, however, data from other services may require a subscription.

For a full overview of how to use Next Big Sound data within Spotify, check out this blog post.

How to Use Next Big Sound

Our integration with Next Big Sound allows you to view your Spotify data and compare it with data from around the internet. Click here for an overview of Next Big Sound as a whole, and if you haven’t yet, start by signing up to see your Spotify data here.

Once you’re approved to see the data you’ve requested, you’re ready to unleash the full power of our integration with Next Big Sound! We’ve teamed up with Next Big Sound’s Client Services team to show you how. This overview of the basic features is the first in a series of posts explaining how to get the most out of your Spotify data in Next Big Sound:

1. The Next Big Sound Dashboard

This is the first page you see when you log into Next Big Sound. All of the artists you follow are here, including the artists for which you’re approved to view Spotify data. The artists you follow are the same artists included in your weekly Next Big Sound email summary.

Once you’re approved to see a particular artist’s Spotify data, their profile will show up automatically in your dashboard. If it doesn’t, follow these steps:

Click Search for Artists to Follow on your Next Big Sound home screen or a blue plus sign within any blank square.

Type the artist’s name into the search bar.

Choose the correct artist from the drop down menu.

The artist will appear on your home screen. Click on the tile to go to the artist’s page.

2. Set Your Key Metrics

Next Big Sound tracks more than 30 different networks and the amount of data can seem overwhelming. This is why Next Big Sound enables you to set Key Metrics so you can quickly and easily view your most used and most influential metrics.

Once you set your Key Metrics, they will be your default metrics for the graphs on your artist page, as well as the stats you see in your emailed artist reports. Here’s how to choose them:

Choose up to 12 Key Metrics. To add to more Key Metrics, select any metric from All Metrics and drag it into the Key Metrics section.

Change the order of your Key Metrics. Select a metric and drag it to the desired position.

3. Artist Overview Report

Once you click an artist’s name or image from your NBS Dashboard, you will be taken to their Overview Report. The Overview is similar to a traditional one-sheet. It is your bird’s-eye view of top tracks, artist rankings, key metrics, and important events and demographic + geographic details.

You’ll also find recent events that might have impacted your artist’s Spotify streams and changes in your other key metrics. Data has little value without context and this event stream allows you to better determine drivers so you can replicate and build on your successes.

What really sets this Overview Report apart from a traditional one sheet is it’s dynamic qualities. Each module (tracks, demo, and geo) can be changed to reflect almost any network connected to the artist’s profile. Additionally by using the date range selector you can focus the report on a specific period of time such as the release week of the artist’s latest album.

4. Graphs

Graphs are the best way to do a deep-dive into your artists data or compare trends between artists and metrics in Next Big Sound. To save you time, the table beneath the graph will default to your Key Metrics. Use the ‘Metrics’ drop down menu to change which metrics are included in your graph.

Users who have upgraded their artist have the ability to select a custom date range, set custom benchmarks, view the event stream in the graph and a number of other analytical tools. To see more information about Next Big Sound’s pricing plans, visit their pricing page.

5. Tracks

Use the Tracks section to graph and compare specific pieces of content. Compare your artist’s most recent release to their previous single or graph each track on their latest album. Like the Geo section, your Spotify data is available in the Tracks section for free users, but additional sources are only available to upgraded accounts.

6. Sources

Sources are how Next Big Sound collects social data to populate an artist’s profile. Each artist has their own Sources page where all the available and missing network connections are listed. The more sources connected, the more insightful and useful Next Big Sound can be!

Charts & Play Counts

At the top of an artist’s discography page, Spotify lists the most popular tracks in that artist’s catalog right now, along with how many times they’ve been streamed since they were added to Spotify:

Be sure to check out our charts page for the updated Spotify-50 (our list of the most popular tracks on Spotify) and Most Viral charts for all territories where Spotify is available!

FAQ's

A discography page is where an artist’s music lives on Spotify, including Albums, Singles, and 'Appears On'. This page is automatically created when your content is sent to Spotify. It can also include merchandise and tour dates - helping artists to make the most of their spotify presence.

Once you have 250 followers, you can verify your artist page here. This will allow you to merge your user account (whether your personal or newly created, separate Spotify account) with your discography page and share playlists with your fans.

We get all of our artist images from the Rovi database. You can submit your image to Rovi here.

Artists with over 250 followers can claim their discography by submitting an artist verification request. Verification merges an artist's discography with a user profile of their choice, and allows them to share playlists directly with their fans.

Spotify's related artists and radio are determined by algorithms which look at what people listen to alongside your music. So if I put your music in a playlist alongside artist X & artist Y then artists X & Y are more likely to be shown as related to you or played on radio.

There's no manual way to change these. You can start to affect it by creating a sharing playlists of your music with other music you think is more related. This will increase your streams and the bands you want to be associated with, increasing the chance of them becoming related artists.

Unfortunately there's no way to connect a Spotify account with a Facebook page due to backend limitations. You can connect a Spotify account with a Facebook account, but not a page right now. This is why we encourage folks to link directly to playlists and profiles on their Facebook pages. To do that, simply right-click on the playlist or track and choose ‘Copy HTTP link’. Then you’ll be able to paste the link on your social media like you would any other link.

The Browse page is totally algorithmic based on streaming data. This means that the albums are recommended based on what other people are listening to in your region. All new albums that get uploaded to the service are put into the algorithm, and if a lot of people listen to it in a particular area it will show up on the page.

The more you are followed, shared and appear in playlists, the more you will appear in a user’s Discover Feed.

Because artist radio stations are created algorithmically, we need data in order to populate it. There can therefore be a delay in the Start Radio button showing up. Your artist radio station will appear automatically when we have enough data.

You can go to Tourbox (tour date management platform) where you can start managing your Songkick artist page and edit dates (as well as sync all your other online profiles so you only have to enter once to publish everywhere): http://tourbox.songkick.com. You can contact Songkick directly at spotifysupport@songkick.com.

These are local files which means that they have been pulled from your computer to the Spotify desktop client. They can only be played on your computer and no one else can search for them or play them! For more information about local files, click here.

You may see this icon next to a playlist track. It means you can’t play the track’s album in your country, but Spotify has found the same track on a substitute album, which you can play. If you want to know where the track came from, click the chain icon to go to this substitute album.

We get all of our content, including music, album art, and metadata from third-party distributors like record labels, CDBaby, TuneCore, etc. We have no way to change this data manually, so you'll need to contact your digital distributor to have them submit a metadata update.

As you might know, we have entered into agreement with the major labels and the biggest indie aggregators such as Merlin Networks (representing thousands of labels such as Beggars Group, Domino, Kontor, Finetunes, PIAS and many more), The Orchard, CDBaby, INgrooves and IODA. Going through an aggregator that already has set up an agreement and delivery process with us is the fastest and easiest way to go for labels.

If you collaborate with any of these distributors already, then contact them to get your content on Spotify. Or, if you are distributing your content through another distributor, then please let us know - maybe its one we have a deal with.

If you don't have a deal with an aggregator/distributor, then the easiest and fastest way on board is to become a Merlin member (which is free of charge) - then you will automatically be covered by our agreement with them. More info is found here: http://www.merlinnetwork.org/join/

Once you have an agreement through Merlin, then we can provide you with the delivery details.